Blue Mountain Bill:: Stories of Corbin's Park from a Wildlife Guide and Caretaker

By William Henry Jenney

Meet Old Uncle Bill

He is a kind, friendly, sincere old gentleman who lives in a little house on a hill in Croydon, New Hampshire. He insists his home is Corbins Park and dearly treasures his associations and experiences there. To be with him, hear him talk, and absorb some of his homely sympathetic philosophy inspires in one a greater longing for the plain simpler things in life.

Author, William Henry Jenney, wrote the stories presented in this book, as the character Blue Mountain Bill (aka Uncle Bill Barton). Each story is based on his experiences as a young man working as a wildlife guide and caretaker during the early 1900s at Corbin's Park, a New Hampshire hunting reserve. To one who is privileged to read these stories there comes a realization that in the profound appreciation of the beauty of the natural setting, in the keen understanding of the different forms of wild life which inhabited the Park, and in the clever delineation of the character of Old Uncle Bill Barton, about whom all these stories center, is the reflection of the soul and character of William Henry Jenney himself.

"Uncle Bill Barton is the type of solid old New England character that Bill Jenney knew so well as a boy - a type that began to pass out of existence a generation or so ago, and which unfortunately we will probably never see again."
~ William Brewster, Headmaster
of the Kimball Union Academy, 1935-1952

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496952615

William Henry Jenney

William Henry Jenney was born in Plainfield, New Hampshire, the son of Frank and Lois (Cutting) Jenney. Bill was a lineal descendent of John Jenney, who journeyed to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Little James in 1623 and erected the first “mill for grinding and beating of corn upon the brook of Plymouth.” A 1906 graduate of Kimball Union Academy, Bill was a devoted alumnus. He rarely missed a football or baseball game and loved to compete in snowshoe races, mowing contests, barrel runs, track, and wrestling. Bill married Susan Mae Freeman in 1910, and they had three children: Arlene (born 1913), William (born 1916), and Beulah (born 1918). He served the town of Plainfield in many capacities: selectman, town clerk, school treasurer, and Justice of the Peace. Bill was also involved in theatrical events in the community. He was one of the original members of the Merifield Club and organized the Howard Hart Players. Playing the lead role in the play “Uncle Jimmy,” he won a reputation throughout New Hampshire for interpreting the Yankee character. Bill also had a deep love of nature and a keen understanding of wild animals. At one time, he worked as a guide in Corbin’s Park where his job was to walk the twenty two mile long park fence. He enjoyed recalling his experiences there: wild boar hunts, buffalo stampedes, and the capture of his pet mink, “Eliz,” who became the matron of his profitable mink farm. Bill was best known for his friendliness and sense of humor. At the end of his life, when he was confined to bed, he wrote a great deal. Published here for the very first time, Bill’s manuscripts about his experience at Corbin Park, nature, and animals are filled with wisdom and humor.

Book preview

© 2015 William Henry Jenney. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/23/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5262-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5260-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5261-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920353

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Editor’s Preface

Foreword

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter I: How It Came to Be

Chapter II: Old Goggle Eyes

Chapter III: The Buffalo

Chapter IV: Over the Fence

Chapter V: Wild Hogs on the Loose

Chapter VI: Honey Bee Fever

Postscript:

Appendix: The Editors Legacy and Other Photographs

References

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to:

Arlene Jenney

Jr. Editor, Alyssa DeCarlucci

Jane Carver Fielder, Archivist Kimball Union Academy

Brian Meyette and the many contributers to his Corbin Park blog

Plainfield, Meriden, and Newport, New Hampshire Historical Societies

Kimball Union Academy

Artistic Contributions:

Courtney DeCarlucci, interior sketches

Mark DeCarlucci and Michael Harmon, cover design

Editor’s Preface

My grandfather, William Henry Jenney wrote these wildlife adventure stories while dying of Tuberculosis in the early 1940s. It was a tumultuous time in history, as brave young Americans fought and died during World War II. These writings stand by themselves as six wildlife adventure stories that come together as a short novella written by my grandfather as the character Blue Mountain Bill (aka Uncle Bill Barton), a wildlife guide and caretaker of Corbin’s Park from 1900 through the 1920s. Originally a vast exotic wild game reserve located in in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, today Corbin Park functions as an exclusive hunting club operated by the Blue Mountain Forest Association. The Park is described as a thirty member expensive and secretive men’s-only hunt club that doesn’t relish publicity.

These stories represent the experience of a versatile man of his times. According to my grandfather’s dear friend, William R. Brewster, former headmaster of Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire, Uncle Bill Barton is the type of solid old New England character that Bill Jenney knew so well as a boy—a type that began to pass out of existence a generation or so ago, and which unfortunately we will probably never see again. As a forward to this book, William Brewster presents a best first-person intimate portrayal of my grandfather, the author and the man. This appreciative dedication provides an intimate characterization by a true and admiring friend who reviewed and critiqued many of my grandfather’s writings, including several of which were lost years ago, but are quoted by Mr. Brewster. These quotes from lost stories are valuable indicators of the full range of the experiences and insights of my grandfather.

While some of the stories are based on historical context, others are based on the actual experiences of my grandfather. A detailed history, written by my daughter, Courtney DeCarlucci, has also been included as an appendix to capture the past and current mysteries of Corbin’s Park and the Plainfield/Meriden/Croydon New Hampshire region. As one reads of the secretive protectiveness of the hunting club membership, granddad’s stories stand as a one-of-a-kind insider portrayal of the Park’s operations during its early years. Original source material is also contained within this book, including several photographs of my grandfather and two of my mother, Arlene Jenney as a little girl posing with wild boar shot by my grandfather, circa 1916/1917.

Writing on his deathbed in the early 1940’s, my grandfather was gravely concerned about the pace of World War II. He likened the war to a football game where all the goalposts might come down. America as a whole was in a defensive mode, as the Japanese had inflicted devastating harm at Pearl Harbor, and the Germans were bombing London. William Brewster portrays granddad’s rather optimistic perspective on the war in his quote from one of the lost stories, As Uncle Bill Sees It. By the time I came around in June of 1944, Granddad had died the year before and the D-Day invasion had begun just days before my birth. Although we were seeing an offensive turn-around in the course of the war, the battles still to be fought on the German and Pacific fronts would take a terrible toll in US and civilian lives.

William Brewster also quotes from the story, Eliza, about a wild mink Bill Barton caught in a trap, which became the nucleus of a profitable family mink farm. A New Hampshire Daily Eagle news article from July, 1940, detailed the operation of the mink farm by his son, and my uncle, William Jenney Jr.

The six highly entertaining tales included within these pages are told using original Eastern New England dialect, as my grandfather was a keen interpreter of the character of the traditional old New England type. While this vernacular presents an initial challenge to the average reader, the interpretation becomes a great deal easier as one becomes captivated by each adventure, as told by Old Uncle Bill.

Chapter I: How it Came to Be is a historic sketch on the origins of Corbin’s Park and the life and death of Austin Corbin II.

Chapter II: Old Goggle Eyes is a humorous tale of Uncle Bill as hunting guide for an elderly gentleman friend of an early Corbin Park member who was out to bag a bull elk while donning spectacles of half-inch thick glass. Carrying a rifle, hunting knife, and a large bag containing food and a bottle of whisky (which he consumed at every juncture) Old Goggle Eyes, half blind and drunk, shoots five times at a trophy bull elk, missing every time, before a sixth shot apparently brings the big elk down. As he ends the story of the slain elk, Uncle Bill reports, That’s ’bout all thar is to it fellers, ’cept the funny part of it was thet good Old Goggle Eyes, who couldn’t see nothin’, never knew thet I shot my gun. It’s better so, ain’t it?

In Chapter III: The Buffalo, Uncle Bill takes the narrator to feed the buffaloes in the park. A fascinating account featuring a how to on crating buffaloes for transport to city zoos and historic sketches on the semi-successful efforts of Ernest Harold Baynes in training growing calf buffaloes to wear a yoke and pull a wagon and Mr. Corbin’s totally unsuccessful attempts to breed black domestic cows imported from Scotland with a bull bison named Ol’ Cleveland.

In Chapter IV: Over the Fence, Uncle Bill acts as private investigator tangling with poachers from the Meriden side of the fence attempting to take deer and elk out of Corbin’s Park. In a dangerous encounter with tough poachers, Bill is knocked out with a gun barrel, followed by a private settlement with a doctor accomplice from one of them big cities down country.

In Chapter V: Wild Hogs on the Loose, venison dinner with Uncle Bill includes the full story of how he bagged nineteen European wild boars who escaped the Park over two winters. This chapter presents a how-to on hunting the elusive European wild boar, including day and night stalking excursions, baiting and shooting from inside his house at night with eight rifles at once, and his dead pursuit of boar chased out of their den on snowshoes in deep snow.

A slight departure from the rest, Chapter VI: Honey Bee Fever, is an A-Z guide on wild bee interactions and hierarchies, featuring jack-of-all-trades, Uncle Bill Barton in the pre-depression era, as a beekeeper whose uncanny instinct for the ways of nature enabled him to interpret the flight patterns of wild bees to find bee trees and extract the queens for his own hives to harvest honey.

The sum total range and detail of history portrayed in these stories appeal to the varied interest of adult and child readers alike. I am proud to make these fascinating writings available for your reading pleasure.

~ Craig A. Wilson

Editor

BMB001.jpg

William Henry Jenney

Photo courtesy of the Archives Collection at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, NH

Foreword

Bill Jenney—An Appreciation, July 1943

by William Brewster, Headmaster of the Kimball Union Academy, 1935-1952

Reprinted by permission, Archives Collection at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, NH

For the many friends of William Jenney there is little or no need of a formal eulogy of this man whom so many of us knew intimately. His activities in the public life of his community, his many acts of kindness in his own neighborhood, and his active participation in the alumni interests of Kimball Union Academy are all too well known to require any formal listing or discussion. All that needs to be said is that William Jenney has left us and that we miss him. He has left a place in our community and in our hearts that lends a touch of sadness whenever we think of him.

William H. Jenney died on February 13, 1943, at the age of 56. He was born in the town of Plainfield and spent the greater part of his life in this community. Always keenly interested in community affairs, Mr. Jenney served the Town of Plainfield for three years as Selectman, ten years as Town Clerk, and was Treasurer of the School District for nine years. He was one of the original members of the Merrifield Club, and through his interest in dramatics was one of the organizers of the Howard Hart Players of Plainfield.

Mr. Jenney was a person of versatility and of many abilities. Playing the leading role of Uncle Jimmy in the play of that same name, he won considerable reputation for himself throughout the state as an interpreter of the character of the traditional old New England type. In this role he was favorably compared with Denman Thompson of the Old Homestead fame.

One who knew William Jenney, however, cannot continue speaking of him as William or Mr. Jenney. There was a quality about him that drew his friends to him in such an intimate manner that, to do him justice, one can only speak of him as Bill. Possessing all the intimate qualities which that name connotes, he was Bill to everyone who knew him.

Just to meet Bill Jenney was to be his friend. His quality of friendliness was one of his outstanding characteristics, and drew people to him readily. His native sense of humor, reflecting itself in his twinkling eyes and his smiling lips, impressed itself upon one immediately upon meeting him. There were, however, other qualities more deeply hidden in this friend and neighbor of ours which perhaps most of us did not have the opportunity to recognize and appreciate so well. It is what we may perhaps call the soul of the man himself, which is portrayed to most of us in a way that not many suspected. Bill Jenney loved to write—to put his thoughts and impressions indelibly into written expression.

During the long hours that he was confined to his bed, Bill worked indefatigably with pencil and paper. I was privileged to have the opportunity to read several of these manuscripts and to discuss them with Bill during the period of their preparation. In